And so 2012 Begins!

Once again, a long absence followed by a not-so-long awaited return! One of my goals for the new year is to keep up with the family blog again. Let's see how this goes!

I won't bore you with another super-long recap. Instead, I'll just write about our Christmas! We set up our Christmas decorations for Family Home Evening the Monday after Thanksgiving! It's still 90% dominated by Regan's Ohio State decorations, but my Hello Kitty stuff is slowly making a dent! And now that we have Sasha, I have someone else's ornaments to help even it out!

Papa and Sasha in front of our lovely tree!

On December 16th, we went to the Kaiserslautern ward Christmas party! Sasha and I spent about 4 hours that morning at the church helping to set up, but I just wasn't that excited about going. We ended up having a great time, though. The theme for the party was The Polar Express! Sasha sat on Santa's lap for the first time...and hated it. He started crying right after I took this picture. Oh well.

"All I want for Christmas is to GET AWAY FROM SANTA!!!"

Just a few days later we got our first (and last, really) good snow of the year! Not a ton, but enough to make this tiny snow man! I have no idea if Sasha got to play in the snow at the orphanage, but I'm going to assume that he didn't. In any case, it was OUR first time playing in the snow! He had SO much fun shoveling the walk with me - he enjoyed that a heck of a lot more than he enjoyed making the snowman. Right after this picture, he knocked the little guy right off the step! So rude!

I hope it snows again soon!

On December 21, we packed our bags and hit the dusty trail for Ohio! We took an 8 hour flight from Frankfurt to JFK, had a 5 hour layover, and then took an hour and a half flight from JFK to Columbus! Sasha flies like a champ. He slept 4 of the 8 hours from Frankfurt, and pretty much the entire time from JFK to Columbus!

Looks comfy, doesn't he?

We spent the next few days in Ohio doing last minute Christmas shopping and spending time with family. A lot of people from the Harvey clan were pulling into town not only for Christmas, but for my brother Jared's upcoming wedding! So exciting!! My parent's house was just insane with people trying to get ready for both. On Christmas Eve, we went ice skating with Regan's sister and her family. Well, I didn't ice skate - I took pictures and video while everyone else went out on the ice. I'm not a huge fan of skating....I always hurt myself when I try it. Sasha had fun, but I think Papa got a little tired from helping him the whole time.

Sasha going skating for the first time! So cute!

Regan's family has their big Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve, so after skating it was back to his parent's house to party! Sasha put on his brand new Christmas pj's (the first present he got to open) and struck a few poses for me!

Awwww!

Regan's Dad (with some helpers) made his traditional egg muffins and then all settled down in the basement while the nieces and nephews put on a little nativity play. Then we played a white elephant style gift exchange game (each family brought a 'family' type gift worth no more than 30$) - we got a set of nerf guns and bullets! Awesome! I'm sorry to say that after that, I kind of passed out on the couch. Regan woke me up around midnight to let me know that everyone was gone and we could go to bed. I felt lame.

We got up extra early the next day to head over to my parent's house for their Christmas morning celebration! We got there a little late (it's supposed to start at 7 and we didn't get there until 7:30), but it was ok, really, because all we did was open stockings and have our traditional cold cereal Christmas breakfast! Since Christmas was on a Sunday, we went to church at 9 with my parents. Church was only an hour, and then it was back home to change and have presents! We got started opening gifts around 11:30, and didn't finish until close to 2! My family has a very particular way of opening gifts - my dad is "Santa" and he hands out the gifts, one at a time, so that everyone can see what everyone else gets! I really like doing it this way - I like to see the reactions to special gifts! Sasha had a lot of fun...for a while. He passed out about half-way through. BUT he had a blast until then!

That is one yucky face! No more Christmas candy for you!

"Stop opening your gifts and look at what *I* got this morning! A FROG!!"

After opening gifts, we sat around until dinner! Dinner was a little late (we usually eat around 1 on Christmas, but we didn't eat until 4), so we had some time to kill. This would normally be great, except Regan's family was eating Christmas dinner at 6...that's not a lot of time between first and second dinners!

Look at that spread!

We chowed down at my parent's house, then ran over to Regan's parent's house and chowed again! It was a very, very filling day!

The next few days were spent gearing up for the big wedding! Mostly, I just played around with the kids.

Cousins having fun!

On the 28th, we took a happy trip to Columbus and were able to witness the sealing of my brother Jared to his lovely new wife Kara! It was an amazing time and I took a ton of pictures, but I'm not posting any of them (except the one below) because I want to give them the chance to post their own photos (which are the ones I took) before I do!

Nothing is more important than being married in this place!

After the wedding and photos, we went back to my parent's house for a lovely open house. There was a TON of food (mostly pies), some of which my family is probably still eating haha. Lots of fun people were there and the happy couple got lots of awesome gifts!

Better than Christmas!

The following day, the 29th, was my mama's 50th b-day! THAT IS A BIG DEAL! So My Aunt Becky, my mom, and me all went out to lunch at Olive Garden! We had a blast chit-chatting and eating yummy food!

Hello, ladies!

That night, we all went bowling! I broke 100 for only the 2nd time in my life! But even MORE exciting was what Sasha did - right before the end of the night, someone let Sasha roll a ball down the lane. It was going like -.3 miles per hour...and he got a strike!!! It was insane!

I'm a bowling pro!

That night, we had a little party for my mom! Instead of cake, she got a pint of her favorite ice cream (mainly because there was so much pie left from the wedding, it seemed silly to make a cake).

Make a wish!

And then a few days later it was back to Germany! The trip went by WAY too quickly and we didn't get to see as many people as we wanted to. I hope some more people come visit us in Germany, soon! I miss everyone so much.

Since we've been home, we've just been fighting with the jet lag. Unfortunately, only Regan has recovered. Sasha and I have been up most of the night every night since we got back - though I would like to point out that it is all his fault!! haha. Poor little guy - no matter how deprived of sleep I try to make him, he still wakes up after only a couple hours of sleep and won't go BACK to sleep until at least 3 hours later! This wouldn't really bother me except that he tries to sing himself to sleep which comes over loud and clear on the baby monitor. I'm hoping that by next weekend, we'll be back on track. I can't take much more of this!